City of Sin

Book 9, 101

Goodbye Visits

Nyris’s ability continued to grow even as she slept in her treehouse, her youth being preserved as well, but the most important part was that this helped her endure her lonely life. Richard sighed as he understood just why she did such a thing to herself, but he simply couldn’t bring himself to think of her as a lover.

Hoping that her rest would be good for her, he carried the eager conscient of the Golden World Tree with him as he flew towards the broodmother nearby. The clone’s body was now even larger than the original, and she had even made it all the way to level 11. Her larval forest had started to assimilate with the systems of the Golden World Tree, the latter extracting origin energy and crystallising it into divinity for her to use in her rapid growth. This unique ability was the primary source of divinity for high elves.

However, things weren’t all rosy either. Perhaps because she was only a clone, this broodmother that was already a startling three kilometres long hadn’t yet been able to awaken her own truename, and didn’t have the capacity to create more special units. She used all of her evolutionary boosts to strengthen her night elf drones.

“This is for you,” Richard landed in front of her and handed over a basket of leaves from Lithgalen.

After a moment of examination, the clone yelped in elation, “Leaves from a world tree. Where did you get them? They feel like they’re millennia old.”

“I picked them from the Golden World Tree in Lithgalen. I can get a few more baskets if this isn’t enough,” he laughed.

“No, this is more than enough!” her ten-metre-long pincers picked up the leaves with caution, placing it into her mouthpiece as she delicately nibbled on them. The clone could already swallow most dragons with her size, but she still took a dozen minutes to go through the leaves.

Richard wasn’t surprised by this, calmly looking around at the clone’s larval forest while he waited. Every golden world tree was unique, and these leaves would allow the clone’s analysis of world trees to advance significantly. She would move on to needing branches, stems, and sprouts soon enough— which he didn’t have the luxury to provide— but any analysis would be useful.

In the larval forest were a dozen worm nests of different sizes, with the smallest still having over a hundred sectors with dozens of night elves sleeping within. Tendrils were buried into each of the drones and were pumping fluids into them, but despite occasional seizures there was no resistance.

A troop of 500 night elves had just walked over to one of the worm nests and were in the process of taking off their armour. Placing all the equipment in a neat pile at the side, they crawled into their pods and allowed a translucent membrane to surround them, nutrients starting to soak into the isolated space. The same tendrils elsewhere slowly entered the pods and pierced into their bodies, starting to transform them.

The drones walking out of these worm nests were clearly larger in stature than the ones that had walked in, their bodies evidently more muscular with dark red inscriptions on their bodies that provided an increased resistance to abyssal heat. These redesigns would be accompanying Richard on his expedition into the abyss; despite his power, Richard simply didn’t have the means to last through the billions of demons in each layer.

Richard was very satisfied with the final output. While he still didn’t fully agree with the clone’s decision to focus solely on combat drones with no effort placed on defence, she had managed to make a powerful troop that was by far the strongest in his repertoire. The main body was now far more focused on special units like wasps, messengers, and flesh furnaces.

By the time he’d finished a round, the clone had only consumed three of the leaves. However, these leaves had pushed her analysis of golden world trees up by a full 10%! While he estimated she would only get to something around 35% by the end due to the diminishing returns, that was still an ample amount considering that a complete analysis would allow her to create her own golden world tree.

The clone suddenly slowed her eating as he approached, sending him a question through their link, “Master, I’m starting to unlock the blueprint for a special unit. I’m not certain what it will do yet, but its price is very high. I will need at least a thousand units of divinity, can I make it?”

Richard paused for a moment at the number she put forward. Divinity was the scarcest resource in his treasury, and a thousand units was equivalent to a full truegod. And that was certainly only a part of the cost; such a heavy unit would likely need an enormous amount of energy from the broodmother and Golden World Tree as well. He couldn’t even really tell her to wait; with only 35% analysis, she certainly wouldn’t be able to predict the result of forming a special unit without trying.

However, something that required that much energy had to be powerful. Pondering for a moment, he decided that it was worth the risk, “Alright, I’ll have someone send things over. How much time will you take?”

“About a week; it should be completed prior to your expedition.”

“Hmm... Okay, I’ll be back in fifteen days then. Get my army ready,” he nodded and turned to leave.

......

The Forest Plane had advanced greatly in recent years, with a whole cluster of towns having sprung up around Emerald City. These towns were occupied by previous inhabitants of Faelor who had retreated here during the war against the reapers, and were now unable to leave due to the devastation the plane had suffered in the various battles. While the wooden huts couldn’t compare to the buildings of the Crimson Empire, they were still homes.

A few years had passed during Richard’s trip to Lithgalen, and the humans had grown accustomed to the climate of the damp forest. Simple businesses had sprung up, mostly focused around woodcutting and herb farming. The plane was exceptionally fertile, with a total of six harvest seasons standing at one more than even Faelor itself. Firewood kept people warm at night, and the excess stonewood had been used to build up facilities to refine metals. Most of the metal had to be imported from elsewhere, but that was perfectly fine; at this point, any single plane was but one cog in the enormous Archeron machine.

Richard used the Bridge to teleport into Faelor, using a wormhole to then arrive at the Land of Turmoil. The broodmother was still sprawled across the centre, a faint glow occasionally lighting up her vicinity. Her body was now a kilometre and a half in length alone, and she had successfully made it to level 13 and was en route to level 14 with speed. Five deities had perished to the reapers, and their bodies had become divinity stores for her advancement.

He landed on her body and knocked against the armour, the impact clanging out like the shell was now made of metal. Her internal construction was now quite similar to the reaper warships, with several times the normal thickness of the epic-grade armour surrounding her. She was effectively a metal fortress now, capable of crushing enemy constructions with her weight alone.

Strangely, the broodmother didn’t respond to his arrival, remaining sprawled across the ground with searing gas shooting out from her spiracles. Richard examined their connection to find that she seemed to have devoted herself entirely to analysing the laws of the reapers, being so occupied that she hadn’t even noticed him. However, he simply smiled and took the skies, flying a few kilometres away to arrive at a strange lake whose steamy surface was glossy as a mirror. Life force was bursting out of the liquid here, and as he looked in he was surprised to find an enormous brain beneath the surface that was hundreds of metres in diameter. The brain was constantly wiggling about, clearly working on something as well.

Drawing on his connection once more, Richard quickly found out that the broodmother had recently constructed an enormous thought centre to assist her in analysing the reaper laws. She had given up on increasing her own capacity to think, instead now distributing tasks to entities outside her body that could then send their results back to her.

He scanned through and saw a large number of worker drones busying themselves in the Land of Turmoil, with at least a dozen enormous tunnels having begun to take shape. These large thought centres would thus be distributed all over, possessing analytical abilities almost rivalling his own. Once the network was completely set up, he estimated that the broodmother would be equivalent to him with a grade 10 blessing of wisdom, which would allow her to analyse the foundational laws of most secondary planes in under a year.